Sunday, December 11, 2016

I stumbled on a long 1999 article about Byzantine artillery by George Dennis. The article, summarized below, adds to the Eastern Roman Empire story of warfare.

Like my previously published 1988 article on the Byzantine Infantry Square, we get a better picture of a highly complex Eastern Roman military machine.

This warfare was not the Classic Roman Legion nor was it the simple knights in shining armor of the West mindlessly slashing at each other in battles. The more we get into the details the more we see that Eastern Roman warfare is almost its own stand alone category in military history.

Enjoy

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The military manual (Strategikon) attributed to the emperor Maurice stipulated that the infantry contingents should be followed by a train of wagons, some of which were to transport artillery crews, carpenters, and metal
workers, as well as . . . “revolving ballistae at both ends.”

I
visualized the wagons as mobile fighting platforms with two
medium-sized torsion or tension weapons, ballistae, which revolved
in a horizontal arc, somewhat like pivoting machine
guns. “Both ends,” though, I am now convinced, refers to the
weapon, not the wagon, and the revolving motion must have
been vertical, up and down (like a child’s seesaw), not horizontal. Torsion weapons, such as the ballista, do not revolve; the onager, which pivots from down to up, moves only at one
end.

Emperor Maurice

The Strategikon, I would argue, is not referring to a torsion
or tension weapon at all, even though it uses the classical word,
ballista, but to a more advanced kind of artillery, recently
arrived in the Mediterranean world, which was operated by
traction, men pulling ropes at one end of a rotating beam to
propel a projectile placed in a sling at the other end, thus
“revolving at both ends.” There was as yet no specific term for
this artillery piece, but it later came to be known in the west as
trebuchet and, as we shall see, very soon in the Byzantine world
as helepolis (city-taker).This thesis seems to be confirmed by the Tactical Constitutions
of Leo VI, compiled at the beginning of the tenth century, and
which, to a large extent, was intended to bring previous military
manuals into line with contemporary equipment and terminology.
According to Leo, the wagons accompanying the infantry
were to carry . . . torsion or tension
weapons, and a supply of bolts. In addition, they were to carry
“ballistae or machines called alakatia which revolve in a circular
manner,” . . .Clearly, these are stone-throwing
machines which could also launch incendiary missiles. The fact that they revolved at both ends or
in a circular fashion makes it almost certain that these alakatia
were trebuchets, very likely pole frame models which could be
transported in wagons, quickly assembled, and operated by one
or a few soldiers, much as depicted in the illustrated Madrid
Skylitzes. Later, in the tenth century, Nikephoros Phokas
ordered that each unit of light infantry was to have access to
three of these alakatia, along with other portable artillery.The author of the Strategikon does not tell us when this new
kind of artillery was introduced into the Byzantine Empire, but
the historian of Maurice’s reign, Theophylaktos Simokatta, does
provide information about when it came into use and what
name the Byzantines gave the new weapon. Bousas, a Byzantine
soldier captured by the Avars, taught them how to
construct a siege machine for
they were ignorant of such machines. And so he
prepared the helepolis to shoot missiles. With this fearsome and skillful device the Avars attacked many Byzantine
cities, leveling the fortress of Appiareia in 587 and ten years
later attacking Thessaloniki, which successfully resisted. Bousas, and other Byzantine artillerymen,
therefore, must have learned how to build and operate these
weapons some years before 587.

Now we are talking.This is a serious weapon.

The fear and destruction wrought by these trebuchets, fifty of which were deployed against Thessaloniki, is vividly described
in the Miracula S. Demetrii:

These were tetragonal and rested on broader bases, tapering to
narrower extremities. Attached to them were thick cylinders
well clad in iron at the ends, and there were nailed to them
timbers like beams from a large house. These timbers had the
slings from the back side and from the front strong ropes, by
which, pulling down and releasing the sling, they propel the
stones up high with a loud noise. And on being fired they sent
up many stones so that neither earth nor human constructions
could bear the impacts.

The defenders also made use of stone-throwing machines,
petrar°ai, to fire back at the Avaro-Slav artillery.
Sailors on the ships bringing supplies to the city were said to be
experienced operators of these petrareai.In Byzantine usage,
however, helepolis, as will be clear in the following pages,
almost invariably means a stone-throwing trebuchet.This use of helepolis to mean trebuchet is found as far back
as . . . the seventh century. . . a Byzantine attack on a Persian
fortress situated on a height. Herakleios ordered the helepoleis
to be placed in position and to launch missiles directly at the
fortifications, as well as over them into the fortress. The
Byzantines kept up the barrage night and day, changing the
pulling teams at regular intervals.

Lord of the Rings Catapult Scene

Ignoring the dragons, the siege of the city of Minas Tirith by the forces of

Mordor is an impressive recreation of pre-gunpowder warfare. Many have

commented that Tolkien patterened Minas Tirith after Constantinople.

A shrunken, weakened, outnumbered empire fighting a hopeless fight

for what is left of civilization.

In 821–823, the forces of the would-be emperor Thomas
brought up “rams, tortoises, and some helepoleis in order to
shake down the walls” of Constantinople.
In addition to petroboloi, ladders, rams, tortoises, as well as fire
arrows from his ships, Thomas ordered the engagement of some
four-legged helepoleis. These last were obviously large, trestle-framed, traction trebuchets,
the other petroboloi perhaps being smaller. “Every day
large bands of soldiers brought these machines forward against
the walls of the city”.Constantine Porphyrogennetos compiled an inventory of the
weapons and equipment assembled for the unsuccessful invasion
of Crete in 949. For attacking a fortress, the ships were to transport large
arrow-firing ballistae. Constantine lists
this among the mangana, siege machines, together with petrareai
and alakatia. There were four petrareai, four lambdareai, and four
alakatia and, for these twelve engines, there were twelve iron
slings, in addition to various nuts and bolts.Constantine also recommended that the emperor take a number
of books along with him on a military expedition. Among
these were manuals of strategy, mechanical treatises, including
the construction of helepoleis, the fabrication of missiles, and
other works helpful in waging war and conducting sieges. Another military manual recommended
that an army besieging a city should pitch camp far enough
away to be out of range of arrows or missiles from the stonethrowing
machines. But it should not be too far from its own
siege engines, poliorkhtikå ˆrgana; otherwise, the defenders
may sally forth and chop them down and burn them. The
attacking troops should encamp close enough so that they can
race out of their tents to protect their helepoleis.An Armenian account of the Seljuq siege of Mantzikert in
1054 describes a huge trebuchet, originally built for Basil II,
called a baban, which weighed some 2,000 kilograms and had a
pulling crew of 400 men and which could fire stones weighing
up to 200 kilograms. Michael Attaleiates apparently refers to
the same siege, for he describes a trebuchet operated by a large
number of men which fired an immense stone against which the
defenders were helpless. They were saved only when a
Latin grabbed a container of Greek fire, dashed out through the
besiegers, and set the machine on fire. When
Romanos IV Diogenes in 1071 was preparing an assault against
the same city, he had a large number of helepoleis prefabricated from huge beams of all sorts
and transported by no less than a thousand wagons, obviously
very large trebuchets. An Arab source speaks of one
huge trebuchet transported in 100 carts pulled by 1,200 men,
with a composite beam of eight spars and launching stone-shot
of 96 kilograms.

In the Alexiad, her history of the reign of her father Alexios I
Komnenos, Anna Komnene makes it abundantly clear that the
major artillery piece of the Byzantines was the helepolis and that it was a large, stone-throwing trebuchet.Anna notes that the Normans constructed helepoleis to
bombard Byzantine fortifications. Without helepoleis, armies
would find it difficult to capture fortified places, as did the
Latins and the Bulgarians. Forced to retreat, the Byzantines
burned their helepoleis so that the enemy would not be able to
use them. Alexios employed helepoleis to destroy the walls of
Kastoria. To drive the Arabs away from the coastline he
positioned helepoleis on ships. The Byzantine general Dalassenos
employed helepoleis on ships to demolish fortifications
on land. Anna many times records the regular use of helepoleis
in sieges.The reigns of John Komnenos and Manuel Komnenos (1118–
1180) witnessed a dramatic increase in Byzantine reliance on
siege warfare and, consequently, on the helepolis or trebuchet.In 1130 or 1132 John surrounded
Kastamon with helepoleis and captured it.43 At Gangra in 1135
he kept up a constant barrage of missiles aimed at the houses
within the city. Against the seemingly impregnable
Anazarba the following year, the Byzantine trebuchets began
pounding the city walls, but the Armenian defenders returned
their fire with stones and fiery iron pellets which set the
Byzantine helepoleis on fire. John had new helepoleis built and
constructed protective brick ramparts around them; his men
then demolished the walls and forced their way into the city. In
1142 he took action against some island-dwellers in Lake
Pousgouse by lashing small boats together and making a
platform on which he positioned helepoleisIn 1165 four large Byzantine trebuchets launched huge stones
against the Hungarian city of Zevgminon. Andronikos Komnenos,
after personally adjusting the sling, the winch, and the
beam, fired stones which hit
with such violence that they brought down a section of the wall
between two towers.Early in the fourteenth century, the Greek version of the
Chronicle of Morea called this weapon by its French name:
trebuchet. Around the end of that century one
again finds helepolis used for trebuchet in an account of sultan
Bayezid’s siege of Constantinople in 1396–1397. And in 1422
Murad had trebuchets, this time called (battlementtaker),
prepared to bombard the city with large stones. Thirtyone
years later, however, the walls were pummeled by huge
stones propelled by gun powder from cannons, and the
helepolis or trebuchet was sent off to the dustbins of history.November, 1999GEORGE T. DENNISDepartment of History The Catholic University
of America Washington, D.C. 20064

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Constantine the Great

Founder of Constantinople which would later be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over one thousand years. Proclaimed religious tolerance of all religions throughout the empire. (306 - 337)

Julian the Philosopher

Born in the new city of Constantinople. Described himself as "first among equals", participated in debates and made speeches in the Constantinople Senate, fired thousands of bureaucrats, proclaimed that all the religions were equal before the law, author. (361 - 363)

Theodosius II

Emperor 408 to 450. Known for the Theodosian law code, and the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. When Roman Africa fell to the Vandals in 439, both Eastern and Western Emperors sent forces to Sicily, to launch an attack at the Vandals at Carthage, but this project failed.

Leo I "The Thracian"

Emperor from 457–474. He was born Leo Marcellus in Thracia or in Dacia Aureliana province in the year 401 to a Thraco-Roman family. He served in the Roman army, rising to the rank of comes. Leo is notable for being the first Eastern Emperor to legislate in Greek rather than Latin. He worked to liberate North Africa from the Vandals with an expedition in 468 of 1,113 ships carrying 100,000 men, but in the end lost 600 ships.

Justinian The Great and Theodora

Emperor 527 to 565. Justinian was the last Roman Emperor to speak Latin as a first language. Justinian's reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire". His general Belisarius conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa, extending Roman control to the Atlantic Ocean. Subsequently Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic Kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the Empire after more than half a century of barbarian control. The prefect Liberius reclaimed most of southern Iberia, establishing the province of Spania. Under his rule there was a uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, which is still the basis of civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of Byzantine culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia.

Maurice

Emperor from 582 to 602. A prominent general in his youth, Maurice fought with success against the Sassanid Persians. Once he became Emperor, he brought the war with Persia to a victorious conclusion: the Empire's eastern border in the Caucasus was vastly expanded and for the first time in nearly two centuries the Romans were no longer obliged to pay the Persians thousands of pounds of gold annually for peace. Maurice campaigned extensively in the Balkans against the Avars – pushing them back across the Danube by 599. He also conducted campaigns across the Danube, the first Emperor to do so in over two hundred years. In the West, he established two large semi-autonomous provinces called exarchates, ruled by exarchs, or viceroys, of the Emperor. Maurice established the Exarchate of Ravenna, Italy in 584, the first real effort by the Empire to halt the advance of the Lombards. With the creation of the Exarchate of Africa in 590, he further solidified the empire's hold on the western Mediterranean.

Heraclius

Emperor 610 to 641. Heraclius' reign was marked by several military campaigns. The year Heraclius came to power the Empire was threatened on multiple frontiers. Heraclius immediately took charge of the ongoing war against the Sassanid Persians. The first battles of the campaign ended in defeat for the Byzantines; the Persian army fought their way to the Bosphorus. However, because Constantinople was protected by impenetrable walls and a strong navy, Heraclius was able to avoid total defeat. Heraclius drove the Persians out of Asia Minor and pushed deep into their territory, defeating them decisively in 627 at the Battle of Nineveh. Soon after his victory he faced a new threat of the Muslim invasions. In 634 the Muslims invaded Roman Syria, defeating Heraclius' brother Theodore. Within a short period of time the Arabs would also conquer Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt.

Constantine IV - "The Bearded"

Emperor 668 to 685 AD. His reign saw the first serious check to nearly 50 years of uninterrupted Islamic expansion. Constantine organized the Empire for the massive First Arab Siege of Constantinople in 674–678. If Constantinople had fallen all of Europe would have been open to Islamic invasion.

Leo III - The Isaurian

Emperor 717 to 741. Defended the Empire during the Second Siege of Constantinople against an invading Arab army of 80,000 men and a fleet of over 2,500 ships. Leo reformed the laws with the elevation of the serfs into a class of free tenants. Leo began the iconoclast campaign.

Irene of Athens

Irene of Athens Byzantine Empress Regnant from 797 to 802. Prior to becoming Empress regnant, Irene was empress consort from 775 to 780, and empress dowager and regent from 780 to 797. It is often claimed she called herself basileus 'emperor'. In fact, she normally referred to herself as basilissa, 'empress', although there are three instances of the title basileus being used by her. Irene was born to the noble Greek Sarantapechos family of Athens. She married Leo IV in 769. Upon Leo's death she became regent for the future Constantine VI. Irene was almost immediately confronted with a conspiracy against her close to home and in Sicily. Irene withstood an invasion by a large Arab army. She subdued the Slavs of the Balkans and laid the foundations of Byzantine expansion and re-Hellenization in the area. Irene's most notable act was the restoration of the Orthodox veneration of icons (images of Christ or the saints). Pope Leo III, who needed help against enemies in Rome and who saw the throne of the Byzantine Emperor as vacant (lacking a male occupant), crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor in 800.

Theodora

Empress as the spouse of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos, and regent of her son, Michael III, from Theophilos' death in 842 to 855. She carried on the government with a firm and judicious hand, and replenished the treasury. The Empress organized the Roman navy and army in multi-front wars against the Arabs and deterred the Bulgarians from an attempt at invasion.

Basil II - The Bulgar Slayer

Emperor 976 to 1025. Basil oversaw the stabilization and expansion of the Byzantine Empire's eastern frontier, and above all, the final and complete subjugation of Bulgaria, the Empire's foremost European foe, after a prolonged struggle. For this he was nicknamed by later authors as "the Bulgar-slayer" by which he is popularly known. At his death, the Empire stretched from Southern Italy to the Caucasus and from the Danube to the borders of Palestine, its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests four centuries earlier.

Zoë Porphyrogenita

Zoë (c. 978 – June 1050) reigned as Byzantine Empress alongside her sister Theodora from April 19 to June 11, 1042. She was also enthroned as the Empress Consort to a series of co-rulers beginning with Romanos III in 1028 until her death in 1050 while married to Constantine IX. Theodora and Zoë appeared together at meetings of the Senate. Theodora was the junior empress, and her throne was situated slightly behind Zoë’s in all public occasions.

John II Komnenos and Irene of Hungary

Emperor from 1118 to 1143. The greatest of the Komnenian emperors. In the course of his twenty-five year reign, John made alliances with the Holy Roman Empire in the west, decisively defeated the Pechenegs in the Balkans, and personally led numerous campaigns against the Turks in Asia Minor. John's campaigns fundamentally changed the balance of power in the east, forcing the Turks onto the defensive and restoring to the Byzantines many towns, fortresses and cities right across the peninsula. In the southeast, John extended Byzantine control from the Maeander in the west all the way to Cilicia and Tarsus in the east. In an effort to demonstrate the Byzantine emperor's role as the leader of the Christian world, John marched into Muslim Syria at the head of the combined forces of Byzantium and the Crusader states.

Michael VIII Palaiologos

Reigned as Emperor 1259–1282. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Roman Empire. During his reign there was a temporary naval revival in which the Byzantine navy consisted of 80 ships.

Constantine XI Palaiologos

The Last Emperor of the Romans 1449 to 1453. Constantine faced the siege of Constantinople defending his city of 60,000 people with an army only numbering 7,000 men against an Ottoman army of over 80,000. He personally led the defence of the city and took an active part in the fighting alongside his troops in the land walls. At the same time, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain the necessary unity between the Genovese, Venetian and the Greek troops. When the city fell to the Turks he tore off his imperial ornaments so as to let nothing to distinguish him from any other soldier and led his remaining soldiers into a last charge where he was killed.

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About Me

"Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.
Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It is us. Only us.
Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach."
- - - Rorschach, Watchmen (1986)

Saturday Sultress - Meg Turney
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Byzantine Algeria

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Byzantine Mesopotamia

The citadel of the Roman-Byzantine fortress of Zenobia near Halabiye, Syria. View from the southern wall looking down to the Euphrates River.

Byzantine Italy

The Castle of Sant'Aniceto (also San Niceto) is an Eastern Roman Empire castle built in the early 11th century on a hill in Motta San Giovanni, now in the province of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy. It is one of the few examples of High Middle Ages architecture in Calabria, as well as one of the few well-preserved Byzantine fortifications in the world. The name derives from that of St. Nicetas, a Eastern Roman admiral who lived in the 7th-8th centuries. The castle is one of the few Byzantine fortifications subjected to the work of restoration and recovery.

Byzantine Croatia

The Byzantine Fortress of Tureta in Croatia. The fortress is the most significant structure on the Kornati islands dating from the Byzantine period. It is located on the island of Kornat and was probably built in the 8th century. It is assumed that the fortress was built up for military purposes to protect and control the navigation in this part of the Adriatic Sea.

Byzantine Egypt

Saint Catherine's Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. The fortified monastery was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th century AD, although there was already a church at the site erected by the Empress Helena in 330 AD. The Monastery also has a copy of the Achtiname, in which Muhammad bestowed his protection upon the monastery.

Byzantine Greece

Angelokastro or "Castle of the Angels" is one of the most important Byzantine castles of Greece. It is located on the island of Corfu at the top of the highest peak of the island's shoreline in the northwest coast near Palaiokastritsa and built on particularly precipitous and rocky terrain. It stands 1,000 ft (305 m) on a steep cliff above the Ionian Sea and surveys the City of Corfu and the mountains of mainland Greece to the southeast and a wide area of Corfu toward the northeast and northwest.

Byzantine Anatolia

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